Yorke laughed, good-humoredly. "What must be, will be. Let us hope there will be no occasion for the display of my fire-works. I suppose, what with his two packs of hounds and the rest of it, even my father will be brought to behave himself demurely, sooner or later." "I should like to see Carew demure," said the chaplain, smiling; "although not reduced to that state by the extremities of poverty. Yes, as you say," he added, in a graver tone, "the pace at which he has been going these twenty years has begun to tell on his fortune. But it is not the dogs that will ruin him (as they ruined poor Ryll, with his few thousands), nor yet his hunters. It is his race-horses on the Downs yonder that will bring him to his piece of bread." "I suppose so," said Yorke, sighing, not so much on Carew's account as on his own; "he backs a horse because it is his own. That is his confounded egotism." "Your tie of relationship, Mr. Yorke, does not, I perceive, make you blind to your father's foibles." "Why should it?" rejoined the young man, passionately. "Am I to feel grateful to him for begetting me? What has he done to make me feel that I owe him aught? Do you suppose I thank him for being admitted here, unacknowledged, uninvited in my own proper person? For being permitted to take my fill at the common trough along with his drunken swine?" "Nay, my friend," interposed the chaplain, coldly; "the food and wine are of the best; and we should never scoff at good victual. If you have so proud a stomach, why are you here? It embarrasses you to answer the question. Let me, then, shape the reply. 'I have a sense of my own dignity,' you would say, 'far keener than that of my father's flatterers and favorites; but, on the other hand, I humiliate myself for a much greater stake.'" "_I_ humiliate myself?" reiterated the young man, angrily. "You take money that is not very gracefully offered for your acceptance, my young friend," said the chaplain, quietly. "You saw him, did you?" cried Richard, hoarse with shame and passion. "No; I did not; but I heard him swearing at you at the hazard-table for having emptied his pockets; and I am familiar with his mode of bestowing presents. You must forgive me, Mr. Yorke," added Parson Whymper, dryly; "but you ought to know that when a man has lost his own self-respect, he is, naturally averse to the profession of independence in another." "If you deem yourself a dependent, Mr. Chaplain," replied Yorke, bitterly, "you still permit yourself some frankness." "Yes; that is one of the few virtues which are practiced at Crompton. You will find me speak the truth."